1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to geographic data processing and, more particularly, to determining parking difficulty in a geographic area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer-implemented interactive maps are useful for a variety of purposes. For example, users may view interactive maps to learn about a geographic area, to identify the location of geographically-distributed objects (e.g., man-made structures or natural features) in a geographic area, search for categories of objects in a geographic area (e.g., restaurants in a given city), or identify routes between locations in a geographic area (e.g., driving directions from a current location to a desired destination). Typically, when using an interactive map, a user interacts with the map by viewing a particular geographic area or entering a destination to determine a route, and in some cases, receive navigation to the destination.
When traveling to a destination in a vehicle, a user may also desire to park the vehicle at or near the destination. However, parking data for a geographic area may be unavailable or inaccurate, and the interactive map may be unable to provide the user with an indication of the difficulty of parking at or near the destination. For example, parking data indicators may only provide users with an estimate of the number of vacancies in a parking garage or street parking. Moreover, such information may rely on other users to report vacancies and may be limited to specific geographic areas.